Tokyo Electron Limited

Tokyo Electron Kyushu Limited

Tel Kyushu Limited

Tokyo Electron Saga Kabushiki Kaisha

Yasuhiro Sakamoto

Masami Akimoto

Masanori Tateyama

Kiyohisa Tateyama

Naruaki Iida

Yoshio Kimura

Hidetami Yaegashi

Noriyuki Anai

Osamu Hirakawa

Hiroyuki Kudou

Jun Ohkura

Akihiro Fujimoto

Yasushi Hayashida

Masatoshi Kaneda

Koji Harada

Norio Semba

Yasunori Kawakami

Haruo Iwatsu

Shinzi Kitamura

Kouji Harada

Masashi Moriyama

Keisuke Shigaki

Junichi Nagata

Junro Iwakiri

Nobuyuki Jinnai

A polyimide solution is supplied to a wafer and the wafer is rotated by means of a spin chuck, thereby forming a polyimide film on the wafer. An irradiator for irradiating a laser beam to a peripheral portion of the wafer W is provided. After the polyimide film is formed and side rinse is performed, a laser beam is irradiated to the peripheral portion to solidify the film at the peripheral portion. The solidified polyimide film forms a weir, thus preventing the polyimide solution which has not dried yet from flowing out toward a peripheral edge portion.

Film forming method and film forming apparatus

A gas supplied from a gas source is exposed to an atmosphere above a liquid surface in a tank saving the liquid and thereafter is supplied around a wafer in a treatment chamber through a gas supply passage and a supply port. The gas supplied around the wafer uniformly flows from around the wafer toward above the center of the wafer and thereafter is discharged from an exhaust port which is formed at the top of the treatment chamber. Meanwhile, with respect to the wafer, heat treatment is performed by a heating mechanism and a predetermined PEB is carried out. The humidified gas is supplied into the treatment chamber, thereby preventing drying in the treatment chamber. Therefore, water in resist is not taken out, resulting in that a required resist pattern can be formed on the wafer.

Treatment apparatus and treatment method

A wafer processing apparatus includes a common path, extending in a Y-axis direction, in which one wafer or a plurality of wafers are conveyed, a plurality of process units stacked on both sides of the common path to constitute multi-stage structures, a main handler moved in the common path in the Y-axis direction and rotated about a Z axis at an angle &thgr; to load/unload the wafer into/from the process units, an arm section arranged to move in the main handler in the Z-axis direction, a plurality of holding arms arranged in the arm section to constitute a multi-stage structure so as to respectively hold the wafers, each holding arm being advanced and retreated on an X-Y plane from the arm section, an optical sensor, arranged in the arm section, for detecting a holding state of the wafer in each of the plurality of holding arms, and a controller for controlling an operation of the main handler, an operation of the arm section, and operations of the plurality of holding arms on the basis of a detection result from the optical sensor, wherein the controller advances or retreats each holding arm while operating at least one of the main handler and the arm section, and causes the optical sensor to detect the holding state of the wafer by each holding arm before the holding arm reaches a corresponding one of the process units.

Substrate processing apparatus and substrate processing method

According to the present invention, there is provided an coating apparatus including means for holding an object to be process, the object holding means rotating in a state in which the object is placed thereon, a ring-like cup situated on an outer side of the object holding means, processing solution supply means, provided above the object, for supplying a processing solution on a surface of the object, discharge means, provided underneath the ring-like cup, for discharging processing solution portions scattered around when the processing solution is supplied on the surface of the object as a waste solution, together with a gas, and storage means, connected to the discharge means, for storing the waste solution and the gas discharged from the discharge means, wherein the waste solution and the gas are separated from each other in the storage means.

Coating apparatus

A wafer processing apparatus includes a common path, extending in a Y-axis direction, in which one wafer or a plurality of wafers are conveyed, a plurality of process units stacked on both sides of the common path to constitute multi-stage structures, a main handler moved in the common path in the Y-axis direction and rotated about a Z axis at an angle .theta. to load/unload the wafer into/from the process units, an arm section arranged to move in the main handler in the Z-axis direction, a plurality of holding arms arranged in the arm section to constitute a multi-stage structure so as to respectively hold the wafers, each holding arm being advanced and retreated on an X-Y plane from the arm section, an optical sensor, arranged in the arm section, for detecting a holding state of the wafer in each of the plurality of holding arms, and a controller for controlling an operation of the main handler, an operation of the arm section, and operations of the plurality of holding arms on the basis of a detection result from the optical sensor, wherein the controller advances or retreats each holding arm while operating at least one of the main handler and the arm section, and causes the optical sensor to detect the holding state of the wafer by each holding arm before the holding arm reaches a corresponding one of the process units.

A substrate processing apparatus has an article transferring unit for transferring articles, and an arm assembly is provided on the transferring unit. Each arm of the arm assembly is provided with pawls for contacting and supporting undersurface portions of the peripheral side wall of each of the articles, and one or more sucking portions are provided on the upper surface of the arm and are disposed above the corresponding pawl or pawls. The pawls, or the sucking portion or sucking portions are selected for every process, and supporting or holding of each of the articles and the required transfer of each of the articles are performed. The transfer can be performed by changing the operating range of each of the arms without replacing the arms. Taking each of the articles in and out of the processing units are carried out smoothly and a series of processes are achieve efficiently.

Resist processing apparatus, substrate processing apparatus and method

A heat-treating method of heating and cooling a substrate comprising the steps of carrying the wafer into a heat-treating section by a main arm and mounting the wafer on a heating stage, heating the wafer mounted on the heating stage, lifting the wafer thus heated from the heating stage, approaching a cooling holder to the wafer thus lifted to cool the wafer above the heating stage, and carrying the cooled wafer from above the heating stage.

Method and apparatus for heat-treating substrate

A wafer conveyor apparatus which moves a wafer moving device which moves wafers housed in a wafer cassette and performs conveyance the wafers, comprises a first arm provided with a light emitting device, a second arm provided with a light receiving device that detects light emitted from the light emitting device, and a wafer detector that has a judgment device for judging the presence or absence or a housing status of a wafer inside a wafer cassette on the basis of the output information of the light receiving device. In addition, the first arm provided to a conveyor platform and having the light emitting device provided at its distal end and the second arm provided to the conveyor platform and having the light receiving device provided at its distal end, are moved and positioned above and below an outside of an outer peripheral side of the wafer, and the first arm and the second arm are moved in a direction of the thickness of the wafer, light is irradiated from the light emitting device and the light is detected by the light receiving device to measure an apparent thickness of the wafer. Then, the apparent thickness of the wafer as obtained by measurement is compared with an actual thickness of the wafer and an inclination of a housed wafer is detected, and depending upon a detected inclination of the wafer, the wafer is either moved, the housing of the wafer corrected, or alarm processing is performed.

Wafer conveyor apparatus and method for detecting inclination of wafer

A liquid coating device for coating a solution on a substrate to form a film includes a chuck for rotatably supporting the substrate, a nozzle for supplying the solution on the substrate, a heater provided in the nozzle for changing a temperature of the solution, a sensor for measuring a temperature of an ambient atmosphere of the substrate, and a controller for controlling the heater according the measured temperature. Thus, a solution having a temperature corresponding to the temperature of the ambient atmosphere is supplied from the nozzle to the substrate.

Liquid coating device

A resist process apparatus of the invention serves to load/unload a semiconductor wafer in/from the respective process mechanisms. The apparatus includes a wafer holding member for holding a semiconductor wafer, and X, Y, Z and .theta. driving mechanisms for conveying the wafer holding member to a resist coating mechanism and the like. The wafer holding member includes a support frame which is larger than diameter of a semiconductor wafer, and a plurality of support members, arranged on the support frame, for supporting the semiconductor wafer in partial contact with the peripheral portion of the semiconductor wafer. Since the contact area between the support members and a semiconductor wafer is small, changes in temperature of the semiconductor, when it is held, are small.

Resist process apparatus

An exposure apparatus of this invention is used in an exposure process of semiconductor and LCD devices. The exposure apparatus includes a stage on which a semiconductor wafer is placed, a rotating mechanism for rotating the stage, a radiation unit arranged to oppose a support surface of the stage, a slider mechanism for reciprocating the radiation unit along a straight line passing through the center of the support surface of the stage, an exposure range input unit for inputting a desired exposure range of the wafer, an exposure range memory unit for storing the input exposure range, a CCD image sensor for detecting a reference position of the wafer, a relative position detector for detecting a relative position between the detected reference position and the radiation unit, a controller for controlling the sliding mechanism in correspondence with the relative position and the exposure range, and a light amount control mechanism for controlling an amount of light radiated from the irradiation mechanism to the wafer in correspondence with the relative position and the exposure range.

Growing community of inventors

Kumamoto, Japan

Yasuhiro Sakamoto